


What the Sky Gives, What the Sky Takes Away

by bickazer



Series: Interstellar Empire [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Alien Invasion, Alien Planet, Aliens, Backstory, Child Soldiers, Coming of Age, Dark, Grooming, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Interstellar Empire, Manipulation, Non-Explicit, Other, Physical Abuse, Power Imbalance, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Space Opera, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-08 01:54:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21227843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bickazer/pseuds/bickazer
Summary: Skylar Deathkey still remembered the day his life had ended.When the enemy invades his home planet, only young Skylar is left alive. The last thing he expects is to be taken under the wing of the very man who killed his family and trained as a warrior in his army. As the years go by Skylar's past slips further away, but so long as the wind still blows, he can never forget it entirely.





	What the Sky Gives, What the Sky Takes Away

**Author's Note:**

> It's been forever and a half since I've posted anything on here, but I've been struggling a lot with writing lately. To get back into the groove, I'm trying to write some shorts set in an original world of mine. I've had this Interstellar Empire setting kicking around for years and it's got a lot of characters and stories to spare, but for now I'll just share little oneshot tidbits.
> 
> This one I wrote a while ago; it's the backstory of one of the central characters in the Empire. As you can tell from the tags it goes into very dark territory, though much of it is only implied.
> 
> As I initially wrote this only for myself, I didn't bother explaining some aspects of the world. I've tried to fill in some gaps while refraining from infodumping, but let me know if anything's confusing or not.

Skylar Deathkey still remembered the day his life had ended.

* * *

He was ten years old then, and his world was the hardscrabble village of Crags' Peak teetering on the edge of the windswept canyon Lelu Mar. Then again, every part of rusty, rocky Lebodia was windswept. The first thing he had heard when he had left his mother's womb was the the howling wind.

  
And from the moment he could walk, he'd learned how to balance on a glider, how to hold its delicate controls and feel the movement of the wind. His father Silas Deathkey was the best flier in Crags' Peak, and was determined his son continued the family tradition.

  
Flying was essential to survival on Lebodia, of course; all children learned to maneuver a windglider. But few as early as Skylar, and few treated it as a calling, merely as the quickest, most reliable form of transport in a world where the winds tipped over land vehicles and made aircraft dangerous to control.

  
To Skylar, flying was life. He loved the freedom, the lonely beauty of soaring above the rugged red canyons and plateaus. By the age of ten, he'd racked up five medals in as many windgliding competitions in the province. He couldn't wait for middle school, where he'd be able to compete in the youth national competitions, and he was even more eager and impatient for his fifteenth birthday, when he could obtain a license to become an official courier. Just as his father, and grandfather, and grandfather's grandfather, had been.

  
Sometimes Skylar felt that he couldn't grow up fast enough.

  
But for now, there was the wind. There were the canyons below him, the unending blue sky above him, the sky for which he'd been named. Silas had insisted on it. His mother had wanted to name him Ancent, after her father. They compromised on Skylar Ancent Deathkey.

  
The day his life ended was a day like any other. Skylar was soaring over Genmis Canyon, allowing the wind to carry the glider on course with minimal intervention from his controls. More nervous and inexperienced fliers kept a death grip on the two slender metal bars and were forever adjusting and readjusting to make sure their wings were tilted at the exact precise angle. Skylar found he could use a gentler hand with his glider. His father always told him not to think of the glider as a tool to be controlled, but as a partner who'd respond as long as he treated it with respect.

  
Skylar stood in the shallow depression between the wings, half crouching forward, palms resting on the handles of the bars. The wind raced past him, cold and refreshing, blowing his short ponytail over his shoulder and sending silver strands into his mouth. Like this, he felt weightless, free.

  
Far below was the canyon, the river little more than a silver thread. Along the canyon rim Skylar saw a ragged line of Akthrian traders leading their heavyset pack animals. The Akthrians were wrapped in layers of robes and kept their armored heads downward. Even from this distance Skylar could see how they cringed and shuffled in the wind. He sighed in contempt. The Akthrians had a superstitious fear of wind, which made one wonder why they'd ever decided to settle on Lebodia.

  
But that didn't matter to Skylar. Playfully, he flicked the right bar, sending it spinning and tilting at a thirty-degree angle. The glider responded by tilting accordingly, and he had to tighten his grip to keep from sliding out of the cockpit. The entire world swooped with him. He grinned and thrust his head out, trying to see over the furthest rim of the canyon.

  
There, he caught a glimpse of it just over the horizon: a harsh outline of black spikes against the rust reds and rock features of Lebodia. It looked like an object from an entirely different world - which it indeed was. This was the Kwithinite military base located nearest to Crags' Peak, and this was as close as Skylar had ever been to it. He might be a free spirit, but even he listened to his parents' dire warnings to avoid the base, to avoid the Kwithinites.

  
There was a truce now, maybe, but it didn't mean the Imperials and Kwithinites on Lebodia lived in peace. There were no Kwithinites in Crags' Peak, but Skylar sometimes glimpsed them in the town whenever he went, silent tall figures in their beetle-black armor. And he often saw their wardaggers swarming above the base. Ugly ships, he thought, their spikes and pointed snouts so unlike the sleek curves of Lebodian gliders.

  
But for the most part, Kwithinites only lived on the periphery of Skylar's life. There was other, more important business to take care of. Such as today's task. He wasn't just flying for the fun of it; no, he had a letter to deliver. His first letter! All right, maybe it was only to Miss Manderly who lived in the next town over, but his father was going to add extra to his allowance for this, which made the occasion feel quite important.

  
Soon he'd wear the blue-and-silver uniform and peaked hat that his father put on every day. Soon, as in five years. _Sigh_.

  
He banked even further to the right, so the horizon appeared a slanted line and the Kwithinite base like a strange tumor upon it. His stomach swooped.

  
With this kind of wind shear, the glider couldn't handle this angle for long, so he gripped the bars and prepared to return them to neutral position - but that was when he saw something strange. A ripple in the sky above the base, like somebody had thrown a rock into a pond.

  
"Huh?" With rather more force than necessary, Skylar yanked the glider back upright. The ripple intensified, spreading every which direction, until he feared the sky itself was going to be torn apart. As the ripple spread a sound came with it, an awful crackling thrum that deepened until it was throbbing in Skylar's bones. His hands were shaking, clenching the handles in a death-grip, making the glider sway back and forth. He had to loosen up on the pressure, but - but - but he couldn't.

Then the sky split open and it filled with darkness, gleaming and oily and bristling with spikes, and from that darkness swarmed wardaggers like locusts, their tiny black shapes blotting out the blue.

  
Skylar tilted his head back and back, trying to take it more of the awful sight. The glider was blowing wildly out of control by now, swinging like a pendulum in the wind, but he didn't care anymore.

  
At last, he comprehended the darkness, the great tear in the sky. It was a ship. Giant, evil, and that horrendous deep throb was emanating from its engines.

  
The wardaggers scattered, shooting out every direction. Skylar reacted by instinct; he pulled the bars forward, hard as he could, and sent the glider diving toward the canyon bottom. Toward shelter.

  
Not a second too soon. The instant he descended, he heard the first boom. Saw the first blast of rock and dust.

  
After that came the first screams.

* * *

If he closed his eyes, he still saw his parents.

  
So he didn't close his eyes. So he didn't sleep. He sat awake, hugging himself, ignoring the pain from the wound in his temple, ignoring the cold, ignoring the hunger gnawing in his belly. Even ignoring the roar of the wind beyond the transport's tinted windows.

  
The Kwithinite next to him occasionally turned its head, as if it was glancing at him. Not that Skylar could tell. He wondered if Kwithinites even had bodies beneath their armor. Maybe they were nothing but hardened black exoskeleton. He knew for a fact that they didn't have hearts.

  
On and on the transport rumbled. Skylar forgot how long he'd been sitting here. He forgot the cold, forgot the hunger, forgot the pain. He even convinced himself that he might forget his parents. His neighbors. Old Man Jish. Old Lady Parsons, who he often cat-sat for on the weekends. The Renners, who had just welcomed a new baby into the family....

  
But the one thing he could never forget was the Kwithinite, the monster, beside him. The same one who had been standing over the bodies of his family, the burning wreckage of his house. The house that had belonged to Deathkeys for nine generations.

  
No, forget it all. Forget it all. Forget it all except for the Kwithinite, its shiny black armor, its cold metallic scent, the subtle creaks every time it moved....

* * *

When Skylar found his voice at last, the first thing he croaked was, "Why?"

  
"Why what?" The Kwithinite's voice was nothing as Skylar expected: not sibilant or gravelly, but low and smooth, bubbling with an amused undercurrent. He spoke Imperial Standard with no accent whatsoever. He could have been a newscaster from the Center.

  
"You know what." Skylar glared at the Kwithinite from behind his crossed arms. He sat huddled against the wall. It was dark inside the base, and if not for the highlights glinting upon the Kwithinite's armor, he would not have been able to see it at all.

  
"They all died. But I'm not dead," Skylar went on.

  
"Yes, what marvelous powers of observation you have," the Kwithinite said, and Skylar suddenly wished he could see its face, see its sneer - anything was better than the flat black mask before him now.

"I'm not dead," Skylar said again, more savagely. "Why? Why didn't you kill me?"

  
The Kwithinite turned to face him. A swift, graceful movement, save for the creaking of his armor. It took a step forward. Skylar didn't flinch.

  
"Open your hand, boy," the Kwithinite said.

  
Skylar glared.

  
"Open your hand."

  
Skyar glared harder, wishing he could set the Kwithinite on fire from his hatred.

  
The next thing he knew, an icy pressure constricted his wrist and he cried out as the Kwithinite pried his fingers open. He yelled, writhed, but could do anything against the monster's strength. When the Kwithinite released him, he slumped against the wall, breathless, an ugly red mark encircling his wrist.

  
In the Kwithinite's long, armored fingers, the knife looked even smaller. Pathetic, a mere toy. Which it pretty much was, as it came from Skylar's scouting kit. The Kwithinite turned the knife back and forth, as if examining it.

Then the Kwithinite exhaled, a long satisfied sound. "Because you tried to fight me. You are small, a human in his unlife. But even so, you tried to fight me."

  
Skylar didn't remember anymore. Not clear memories or thoughts. Just a blur of wild sensations. Choking terror, then rage, then nothing except the knife in his hand and the Kwithinite standing above his parents' bodies and -

  
He buried his face between his knees, trembling. A cold, heavy hand settled atop his head, and he jerked, spine stiffening. He wanted to crawl out of his skin.

  
"And your hair. I have never seen a human with hair quite like yours before. It's beautiful."

* * *

The first month was the worst. Skylar tried to run. The Kwithinite caught him and beat him. Skylar wept at night. The Kwithinite beat him. Skylar choked on the horrid, slimy gruel concoction the Kwithinite fed him. He was beaten. He resisted the lessons on the Kwithinite language. He was beaten.

  
His world became the dark room, the Kwithinite with him, nothing else. He started to wonder if he even had a life before this.

  
Eventually, at some point, he stopped thinking of the Kwithinite as the Kwithinite. He became Marshal Marnok, of the Keiniris Warship Eth'lek. He taught Skylar their words, their science, their code. Then their tactics and weapons.

  
When he first handed Skylar the _kohnara_, the Keiniri short sword, he tilted his head expectantly. Skylar glanced at the weapon, its wickedly serrated edge, its matte black surface, its long grip. Then he slowly looked up at Marnok's body, following every ridge and whorl and spike in that armor that he had come to know as intimately as his own body.

  
Skylar tested a few flicks of the knife, quick, hesitant. Marnok stepped forward, then wrapped his long fingers around Skylar's wrist, adjusted Skylar's grip with his other hand.

  
For a moment, Skylar was holding another knife in his hand, and the air was hot and stinking of roast flesh, and Marnok loomed above his parents' bodies.

  
But the moment passed, and when Marnok stepped back, Skylar made sure he was holding the knife in the correct grip.

* * *

The others in the creche didn't like a human joining them. They were _zassai_, children in their unlife, before their sheaths had started to grow. They were like Skylar, weak and soft-skinned, though their skin came in strange, beautiful pastel shades, not like Skylar's Lebodian tan. In other respects, Skylar thought they rather resembled him. WIth his silver hair cut short, and dressed in the same gray uniform as them, he fit right in at first glance.

  
But they didn't think so. They knew that he was different, and they knew that made him a target. They tormented him endlessly. Tripped him in hallways, forced him to clean up their messes, jumped him in groups after class. At first, Skylar had complained to Marnok. Marnok had backhanded him. Told him to sort it out himself, like a true Keiniri warrior.

  
And he did. Just ignore it, his old school teachers had always said about bullies, but they were humans. Skylar would only gain respect among the Keiniri by proving he was stronger than all of the rest. Every time he was shoved or elbowed, he whirled around and caught the offender and punched him as hard as he could. Every time they tried to order him around, he stood his ground, even if he came out bloody and bruised. When he grew sick of the after-class ambushes, he took to concealing a _kohnara_ on his body. The first time he cut out a bully's eye, they knew he was serious.

  
They stopped calling him _the human_, in those derisive sneers. Now he was _The Marshal's human. He belongs to the Marshal. Don't touch him._

  
_As tough as any Keiniri_, and _that_ made Skylar smile.

* * *

"Lanmey's sheath is starting to grow," Skylar said.

  
"Mmhmm." Marnok sat with his back to Skylar, intently sharpening his _ahnara_ \- the traditional sword that adults were given when they entered their second life. All Skylar could hear was the scrape of metal upon metal, and the creak of Keiniri armor, but he had become used to that sound by now. It was as much a part of the background as the roar of the wind.

  
"On his back. He showed the entire class. There's a plate, it's hardening there. Turning black."

  
"Very interesting," Marnok said in a tone implying the opposite.

  
Skylar turned around, glared at him. "Soon he'll be entering the first life."

  
The _kirasai_, when the Keiniri officially became an adult. When he could finally earn status and glory and contribute to all of Keiniris.

"Yes, it happens to all _zassai_ eventually," Marnok said.

  
"It won't happen to me." Skylar glared at the wall, much as he had once glared at Marnok in the past, hoping to set him on fire from sheer hatred alone. "I'll never grow a sheath."

  
"Of course you won't. You're a human. Absurd boy."

  
"I'll never leave the unlife," Skylar said, his frustration rising. "I'll be a child forever."

  
Just like he'd once feared, impatiently waiting for the day when he could win national tournaments, when he could follow in his father's footsteps as a courier...

  
"You won't," Marnok said in a tone of flat finality. The scraping of metal ceased; he had put down his _ahnara_. "I promise, you will not. You are a human so it is different for you."

  
"Then how can I become an adult? Tell me."

  
"You're so demanding," but Marnok's voice had that indulgent tinge that meant he wasn't actually upset with Skylar. "I'll tell you how. There is a mission I want you to fulfill for me. To prove that you are truly Keiniri, in heart, in soul. Even if you can never be Keiniri in body."

  
"What do you mean?" Skylar said, scowling.

  
"Don't you pay attention to a thing I teach you?" Marnok sank to one knee before Skylar, and though Skylar could see nothing through his mask, he felt that Marnok was directing every single ounce of attention at Skylar. Freezing him in place. "Tell me about _zaikata_ again."

  
"_Zaikata_ is a Keiniri's duty to his people," Skylar said, bored and annoyed. This was one of the first lessons he'd ever learned. "The sum of his efforts to distinguish himself in his every place. Soldier, student, son, mate."

  
"You have a good memory, at least," Marnok said with a chuckle. "That's correct. Your _zaikata_ contributes to that of all Keiniris."

  
"And what does this have to do with...."

  
"In due time." Marnok put his hand on Skylar's knee. Skylar did not flinch. "Your duty is to serve me. To live for me. To give all your loyalty to me. And for that, I want only one thing of you."

* * *

"Skylar, please, please, please, don't, don't, _don't_...."

  
Chirin was a blubbering mess, face red with tears, and gazing down at him Skylar at last felt a twinge of disgust. Disgust with himself.

  
What was he doing? A year, just a year ago, he and Chirin had celebrated his tenth birthday together. They'd competed to see who could glide furthest down the canyon, and like always Chirin lost control of his glider after the sharp eighty-degree turn forty meters down and crash-landed, and Skylar had landed beside him just so they could splash in the river and laugh together....

  
_Your duty is to serve me,_ Marnok's voice whispered. _To live for me. To give all your loyalty to me. And for that, I want only one thing of you._

  
It would be so easy. To finally earn his place.

  
If he did this, no more taunts, no more sneers. Only awe and fear and respect, and from Marnok, trust.

  
"Skylar, Skylar, come on, get a hold of yourself man, this isn't you," Chirin squeaked and blubbered.

  
Almost every night Chirin had come to the Deathkey house for dinner, Chirin and his parents, both of them as round-faced and easygoing as him. The parents had laughed over wine in the kitchen, and Skylar and Chirin had gone out to play, tinkering on their gliders, chasing each other through the village, entertaining Chirin's baby sister....

  
All gone. Skylar's parents. Chirin's parents and sister.

  
And with this, Skylar would end it.

  
He lifted the blade.

  
"SKYLAR!" Chirin howled.

  
Human blood was hot. Not cold like Keiniri. Skylar had forgotten. It was so long since he had felt another human's blood aside from his own. He swayed on his feet, squeezed his eyes shut.

  
When he came back, when he came back home, Marnok would...Marnok would see the blood on his clothes and know he'd done it, and Marnok would praise him, and then scold him for doing a messy job of it, but he would be proud, and Skylar knew it....

* * *

Marnok did more than that.

  
In the morning, when his senses had returned to him and the lighting was a little bit better, Skylar kept tilting his head, trying to catch a glimpse of Marnok's face. As unobtrusively as possible, but of course Marnok noticed.

  
He had been practicing his daily calisthenics in the center of the room, but now he turned toward Skylar, and Skylar could see the amused smile twitching up his thin lips, the feathery markings along his high cheekbones. His skin was pale lavender, a softer color than Skylar had expected, and his hair was as silver as Skylar's.

  
"Is my face really that special?" Marnok said, light and teasing, his golden eyes glinting.

  
"I just...I've never seen...."

"You've earned it. You have earned my loyalty, so you've earned your right to see what lies beneath the sheath. Do you understand?"

  
Skylar nodded mutely, but he wasn't sure if he did. All sorts of strange hot and embarrassing feelings were crawling up his throat. He knew from his lessons and from what the other children said that it was absolutely forbidden to see an adult's face, especially a second-life _nurasai's_. One only showed his face to his superiors. Or to those he trusted most.

  
"Good boy." Marnok stepped forward and ruffled his hair. With a sudden jagged burst of pain, Skylar remembered how Chirin's mother had often patted his head....

  
But that was over and done with. Keiniri did not believe in ghosts. Skylar was a Keiniri, so he would not let human ghosts torment him.

  
He leaned forward, and Marnok took the invitation eagerly.

* * *

After that, he earned more small liberties every day. He was allowed out of the hall of the base in which he had been confined for the past year. He got to use the _kirasai_ training rooms, view the armory, access the science labs. Once, Marnok even showed him the hangar full of wardaggers. Skylar stood there and stared at the rows of aircraft, still and silent now, but pictured how they would look whirring through the sky. Wardaggers did not move like Lebodian gliders, with their strange arabesque loops instead of smoothly tacking into the wind.

  
Even so, after that, Skylar took every excuse he could to visit the hangar.

  
Marnok, of course, caught on. One day he took Skylar to the hangar and let him sit in the cockpit of a wardagger, explained what all the controls meant, even let Skylar turn on the heads-up display.

  
"I didn't know you flew one of these," Skylar said. "You're a Marshal, ground troops..."

  
"That may be so, but I made my name in the sky," Marnok said. "Truth be told, I still rather miss it."

  
"I do too," Skylar said before he could stop himself.

  
"Do you now?" There was something strange, almost testy, in Marnok's voice. The hairs raised on Skylar's neck. Just last night, Marnok had beaten him for daring to be too forward. He never knew what would set off the mercurial Marshal.

  
"Yes, sir." Skylar dropped his gaze to his lap, then started when he felt Marnok squeeze his shoulder.

  
"Relax. If you wish to fly, then you may fly. Why else do you think I took you here today?"

  
"Thank you," Skylar said, and every part of him meant it. Even the part of him that was still human.

* * *

He was not allowed to fly a battle craft, but that didn't matter to him. He wasn't interested in shooting weapons; no, he wanted to feel the wind. So he was perfectly happy piloting a scout ship, spending days alone above the beautiful desolate landscapes of Lebodia, performing visual and radar surveillance.

  
Like this, he felt more like himself than he had in a while. He flew low, lower than Keiniri preferred to fly, and if he could get away with it, he took the forcefield down too. The other surveillance pilots grumbled about him being crazy, but none could deny his skill.

  
"How do you do it?" complained Kimreth, who had been the closest thing to a friend in Skylar's days in the creche, if only because he'd been a little slower than the others, a little less fierce. And more than a little bit ready to complain, much to Skylar's annoyance. "This damn clunker doesn't listen to me half of the time, but you fly it as easily as a top-of-the-line battle dagger."

  
"I've told you time and again, it's how you treat the craft," Skylar said. "It's not just a tool that you have to make obey you. It's a partner who you have to work with."

  
"Pahhrrt-nahhr?" Kimreth tilted his head, squinting his eyes, and with an icy jolt Skylar realized he had spoken in Imperial Standard.

  
The first time in how long? He didn't even think in Imperial Standard anymore.

  
Yet the word had come out without thinking. Because...because....

  
Well, because Keiniri didn't even have the idea of 'partner' in their vocabulary. Every aspect of life was governed by intensely hierarchical relationships. There were no equals; merely the winners or losers of fights.

  
And because the first person who had taught Skylar to love the wind, to work with the wind, to worship the wind, wasn't Marnok. It was....

  
Skylar swallowed hard. "Never mind. You just weren't born to be a pilot."

  
Kimreth nodded, visibly relieved. "You bet. You know, I'm only on this assignment because I failed the test to join the lonarin-riding troops...."

  
Skylar felt perfectly free to tune out the rest of Kimreth's rant, because this was only the fiftieth time he had heard it.

* * *

But in his own way, Kimreth could be a rather sweet friend. He was dim, but observant, and one day after Skylar had spent much of a surveillance mission gazing at a lone courier swooping across the valleys of the northwest, Kimreth came to Skylar with a triumphant smile and a glider in tow.

  
"Where - where did you get this?" Skylar whispered.

  
Kimreth dropped his voice to a whisper too, as if recognizing this was not an exactly approved activity. "I got it from a human in one of those villages. Isn't it funny, you put on your armor and shout a lot and they'll do anything you say."

  
Skylar smiled, but a tiny part of him squirmed inside. Sometimes he wondered if Kimreth forgot that he was human.

  
"Anyway, can you show me how to use this thing? It looks like fun," Kimreth went on.

  
Skylar agreed, though privately he thought that given how wretched a wardagger pilot Kimreth was, there was no way he'd ever master a Lebodian glider.

  
Any fears that Skylar had become rusty were banished the instant he first climbed into the cockpit and took the controls. His hands molded to the metal bars as if they'd always belonged, and his body assumed the crouching pose as if he'd never left a glider in his life. This adult-sized glider was bigger than he was used to, but he fit into it better than he would have the last time he'd flown.

  
These rare moments he stole with Kimreth keeping watch, where he swooped around inside a canyon, were the freest and happiest he had been in years.

* * *

Soon, they became the only bright spot in Skylar's life. Every day when he surveyed, he saw more plumes of smoke in the distance, more downed wardaggers. It reached the point when Marnok started forbidding him to fly. Skylar actually dared to fight with Marnok over that. He nursed the bruises for an entire week.

  
But it became increasingly rare for Skylar to ever see Marnok. Sometimes he spent the entire night away. Sometimes he'd disappear for days, only to reappear in his quarters, deep into contemplating a bottle of _rezinak_. The fumes sickened Skylar, but he always accepted when Marnok offered. Only alcohol could drag Marnok out of his foul moods, turn him back into at least a semblance of the playful commander Skylar knew.

  
And the whole cycle would repeat when Marnok disappeared the next morning, leaving Skylar with a splitting headache and a sickening sense of shame.

  
The base became ever more short-staffed. There were murmurs of transfers, and by transfers, they meant of the off-planet variety. Kimreth became obsessed with returning to Keiniris. Skylar couldn't share the sentiment. He had never known any home but Lebodia.

  
Marnok grounded Skylar permanently. Skylar actually flung himself to the floor and begged and groveled, but Marnok kicked him and snarled, "You're not my mate, so don't pull that on me."

  
"I'll be your mate one day," Skylar protested.

  
Marnok laughed, short and sharp and without humor. "Whatever makes you think that?"

  
Skylar was stung. "Isn't that - isn't that what you always - "

  
His voice sputtered short when Marnok stared at him, simply stared at him, long and hard. There was no glint in his eyes anymore. Just a dead weariness.

  
When he spoke, he sounded almost gentle. "There won't be an always."

* * *

The medical staff roped Skylar into helping at the infirmary, and it was only then that Skylar understood the truth of what Marnok had tried to shield him from. The casualty lists came in every day, longer and longer. The infirmary didn't have enough beds for all the wounded. It became Skylar's task to kill the ones who could not be saved. He went from bed to bed, sinking his knife into heart after heart, the blade dripping with blue Keiniri blood, and felt strangely at peace with himself.

  
One day, as he lifted the blade, a familiar voice rasped, "Wait, Skylar."

  
Skylar froze. The blade was still lifted, but his muscles had locked in place. He looked down into Kimreth's eyes.

  
This felt familiar, but why? A knife in hand, a friend at his mercy....

  
"Just one thing," Kimreth said hoarsely. Blood bubbled at the corners of his lips.

  
"Don't talk," Skylar whispered. A weak and human thing to say, but it slipped out before he could stop himself.

  
"One thing," Kimreth kept trying to say. "The glider...."

  
"The glider?"

  
"I didn't let them...have it. Humans...chased me...saw me with it...thought I stole...." Kimreth spasmed and coughed. Blood sprayed from his mouth. "But I _didn't_," his voice became fierce, "I didn't let them have it. Hid it...cave...in canyon...it's yours, Skylar's, yours...."

  
Skylar found it difficult to breathe. A tight constriction squeezed his chest, like an iron band.

  
Then he gathered his strength and plunged the knife down.

  
Normally he moved straight onto the next patient. This time, he paused to clean the blood from the blade and shut Kimreth's eyes.

* * *

And eventually all of their efforts weren't enough. Marnok insisted on staying. "It's only right. We must defend what is ours. Why doesn't the High Command see that? Those utter fools - if we withdraw here, we might as well concede that the war is lost!"

  
Skylar sat in the bed, quiet, watching Marnok rant and stumble. The room reeked of _rezinak_. It always did, these days.

  
"I want you to promise me, Skylar." Marnok wagged a finger in Skylar's face. "Promise me, when the damn Interstellar Empire comes for you, that you won't let 'em have you. You are my finest creation, my...."

  
"I wanted to be your mate," Skylar said, glaring at Marnok.

  
"What a fucking joke." Marnok laughed. It struck Skylar then that he was speaking in Imperial Standard, had been speaking in Imperial Standard all night.

  
What it meant, he didn't know. Yet he had the strange feeling Marnok was doing it for his benefit.

* * *

The Empire came. The Keiniri fell.

  
Marnok died defending the base. The instant he hit the floor, wide-eyed and reeking of smoke from the blaster shot, Skylar dove forward and fired the plasma pistol. Three of the enemy fell. One didn't. A Gontierran, with clawed hands and stony skin. She knocked the pistol from his hand and Skylar grabbed Marnok's _ahnara_ off the floor and swung it -

  
"Don't shoot," he heard the Gontierran shout. "He's a human."

  
_No, I am Keiniri, I am Keiniri and you just killed my commander and my mate_ \- but the words wouldn't come, only an inarticulate howling. He swung the _ahnara_ again and again but the weapon was too heavy, he couldn't get his balance, and eventually it slid out of his sweat-slick palm and the Gontierran had her blaster pressed right up to his chest.

  
She looked at him with sad, infinitely sad, scarlet eyes. "Will you come with me?"

  
_"Never, Imperial scum,"_ Skylar growled in Keiniris, and made one last attempt at lunging -

  
She fired.

* * *

The Gontierran's name was Commodore Rezyon, commanding officer of the _ISS Imperial Grandeur,_ flagship of the Interstellar Empire.

  
Skylar didn't care. To him, she was an enemy. An enemy who wouldn't even allow him the dignity of dying a proper, honorable death.

  
It would have been one thing if she had defeated him in fair one-on-one combat; under those circumstances, he would have no choice but to submit to her. But she had not wanted to fight him. She had not taken him seriously. She had not accepted his challenge.

  
Now she had captured him, and he lived his days in the _Imp__erial Grandeur's_ brig. She watched at him at all times, every hour of every day. Under her gaze, he couldn't kill himself.

  
He tried, how he tried, but she stopped him every time. She did everything short of tying him up. Foolish, because Skylar tried to bite his wrist, tried to tear out his own artery, until Rezyon released the force field and stunned him with the blaster.

  
Damn it, why did he keep losing to a blaster? That was the most humiliating part of the whole ordeal.

  
Second most humiliating were the questions, the endless questions. "What is your name? Where is your family? Is there anybody who needs to know that you are still alive?"

  
"How did you come to join the Kwithinites? When did the Marshal kidnap you? What world are you from?"

  
If Skylar answered, it was only to spit the vilest curses he knew upon her. She watched him with an eyebrow cocked and a bemused expression on her face. Mocking him, like always!

  
Eventually, the questions stopped. Instead, she just crouched down in front of the force field and talked. Endlessly talked. "You know, kid, I know that you understand Imperial Standard. You react to my questions. There, like right now, that big-eyed look of shock. I know what it means."

  
Not for the first time did Skylar wish he had a sheath, a mask to cover his face. Not that it'd do him any good. He had lost to Commodore Rezyon, so she had every right to see his face.

  
"I think you're probably from this planet. You have silver hair, like some of the humans from the northwestern continent. Most of my soldiers don't like this place too much. It's barren, the wind never stops, it's far from home, the stellarnet is shit. But I can see you don't agree with that assessment, and truth be told, I don't either. There's a kind of lonely beauty to it. Wouldn't you agree?"

  
Not lonely, Skylar thought. She was wrong there. Lebodia wasn't lonely. There were his parents, Chirin, his neighbors, everybody....

  
Often soldiers came in and out of the brig. They'd take Rezyon aside, talk in low, urgent tones. Many cast nervous or resigned glances at him. Skylar could piece it all together; they didn't like that their commander was spending so much time with this one boy. Once, he heard an officer, a fat antennaed Mardrurian, whisper, " - hopeless cause - "

  
Rezyon had reprimanded the officer sharply. Despite himself, Skylar felt a flare of grudging respect for her, though he knew Marnok would have backhanded the offending officer at least.

  
Nonetheless, it was clear all her officers respected and admired her greatly. They never protested too hard, and always left the room when she told them to leave. She had a presence. A weak, Imperial presence, Skylar told himself, but he could picture this woman face-to-face with Marnok and...and...winning. Getting the better of him.

  
And that was what had happened, wasn't it? She had killed Marnok.

  
Skylar wanted to hate her for it. No, he _did_ hate her for it.

* * *

If he couldn't kill himself, he told himself he would not answer a single question of Rezyon's. So far he had been holding quite well to that vow.

  
Until the day when Rezyon mentioned, while babbling to him, " - and that windgliding business, it looks quite amazing, doesn't it? Did you ever do it?"

  
Upon hearing the word _windgliding_, Skylar froze. His every muscle snapped taut. For one wild moment he was no longer in the _Grandeur's_ brig, but soaring free above the canyon, mindless of everything. His father, his mother, the base, Marnok, Kimreth, Rezyon.

  
"Hmm." Rezyon leaned forward, a small smirk tugging up her lips, revealing just the tips of her pointed canines. "That was a reaction, wasn't it?"

  
Skylar glared stubbornly at her, but his heart was pounding like it wanted to escape his chest.

  
"So, about windgliding," she said casually, "how does that work again? It looks dangerous to me, just flying around on that flimsy piece of tin - "

  
"Aluminum-titanium alloy," Skylar said.

  
"Hmm?" Rezyon tilted her head toward him.

  
"I...." Skylar couldn't find any moisture in his mouth. No, he had to stop talking. It was the last thing he could do for Marnok. Not give up anything to the vile Imperial who had killed him.

  
"So," Rezyon said, her voice bright, clapping her hands together, "you go around flying on this platinum-titanium alloy craft - "

  
"Aluminum," Skylar snapped, and Rezyon grinned.

* * *

Days, weeks, passed. A month. Two months. Three.

  
Rezyon stopped seeing him every day, but she came often enough; every two days, sometimes three in a row, depending on what her schedule permitted.

  
It didn't matter. Skylar had started to dream in Imperial Standard again.

* * *

Skylar Deathkey still remembered the day when his new life had begun.

* * *

He was free from the brig at last. He still had not told Rezyon his name, or where he had come from, or why he had fought for the Kwithinites. Rezyon didn't care. Sure, her officers had protested, but Rezyon had overruled them all. She had thought it important to do this first.

  
She drove the transport in silence. Skylar heard the wind howling outside, the smooth thrum of the engine. It took him a few moments to realize that he didn't hear the familiar creak of Keiniri armor.

  
When they reached the canyon, the sun was just barely beginning to peek over the horizon. The light was soft pink, the shadows striping the canyon dark and crisp. Skylar and Rezyon took the narrow, steep path down to the cave near the lip of the canyon, and inside, just like Kimreth had said, Skylar found the glider.

  
It was folded for storage, and scuffed and dusty, but Skylar knew it would still function. Rezyon helped him carry it back up, and he unfolded it and arranged the handles, adjusted the wings. Rezyon stood back, arms crossed, watching him attentively. But without suspicion.

  
Skylar took a deep breath, then climbed into the cockpit. His fingers wrapped around the bars. His body leaned forward, his back muscles straining agreeably like he'd never left the cockpit.

  
This time, he fully fit in the adult-sized glider. He wasn't fifteen yet, but would be in a year and a half.

  
How long ago that old dream seemed.

  
For now, there were no dreams. There was merely the canyon before him, the silver river aglow in the sunrise, and the wind, always the wind, caressing him like a lover.

  
He leaned into it and took off.

  
The wind wasn't particularly strong today; he couldn't pull off any daredevil stunts. But he didn't mind. He was content to drift and glide, letting the currents buoy him back and forth, lazily taking in the great expanse of the landscape beneath him. He had all the time in the world.

  
He could continue to ride the glider north, follow the wind forever, leave behind everything and everyone. But he knew he wouldn't. As he tilted his neck back to gaze at the rising sun, he already knew that sometime in the future - minutes, hours - he would turn the glider around, and he would fly back to the canyon rim where Rezyon was waiting, and together they would return home to the _Imperial Grandeur._

**END**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Let me all know what you think of it; nothing encourages me more than knowing other people are also interested in the worlds in my head haha. I definitely plan to explore the Interstellar Empire setting more in the future, and Skylar's character in particular.


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